Friday, September 23, 2011

The first part of our tour began at the Stanley House, home of Agnes Stanley, the first person to be born in Garden Grove, and her family. You can see this house on Euclid Avenue as you drive by. This post is more about the details than room photos--those will come later. I'm not a fan of Victorian homes, but I will say that the home was brighter on the inside than I imagined.

Armilyn and Alex trying out the old pump organ

Alex is fascinated by the workings of an old, hand-cranked washing machine

Detail of an ornate door hinge

The entire tour of the ranch lasted 2 hours, but we spent almost the entire first hour in the Stanley House. That's how much stuff there was to see!

Sunday, September 18, 2011

On Sunday we paid a visit to Stanley Ranch in Garden Grove. The ranch is actually a historical district anchored by the Victorian home of Agnes Stanley, the first person born in Garden Grove. There are many historical buildings from the city that have been moved to the site, but in this post we will focus on the garage that Walt Disney began his career in California at.
The garage was not originally in Garden Grove, but donated to the historical society by friends of Disney when the original location was slated for demolition. Surprisingly, the Disney studio nor Disneyland or the city of Anaheim wanted the structure.
It's a simple garage from the early 1900s, that is roughly 10x25 feet, just enough to get 1 car and some extra storage room. There are cases with memorabilia from a Disney fan club inside, and they hold meetings there every so often.

A projector from the nearby Gem Theatre. Not Disney-related, but from the same era.

Walt overlooking a model of 1955 Disneyland.
More from the Stanley Ranch in future posts. We had a 2-hour tour of the place and took lots of pictures.

Monday, July 4, 2011

On July 1, we headed over to the Great Park to try and ride the balloon again. Unfortunately all the reservations were taken and standby didn't look good (no standbyes got on that night).

They added a lot of landscaping, playground, and a carousel since the last time we were there. The balloon has internal illumination, so it glows at night, very pretty, though my iPod camera doesn't do night shots very well. The worker said we had to get there before the flights started in order to get a reservation.